In recent years, an imaging device such as a digital video camera and a digital still camera is spreading remarkably, and an occurrence of a situation in which a plurality of imaging devices shoot one object at the same time, is increasing. As a specific example of the situation, in a foot race in an athletic meet of an elementary school: a father shoots, from a short distance away, a moving image from a start to a goal with a video camera; simultaneously, a mother positioned in a public audience seat which is placed near a starting point continuously shoots, from a quite close position, still images at the time of the start with a still camera; and a grandparent, positioned in a seniors' spectator seat which is placed in front of the goal, shoots the moment of the goal with a camera built into a mobile phone.
On the other hand, a user of a him type camera often carefully selects a time of shooting and releases a shutter, because a film is wasted if the shooting fails. However, in a shooting with a digital camera, even if the shooting fails, data may be deleted. Therefore, when the shooting fails, little loss occurs, as compared with the film type camera. Moreover, many of recent digital cameras can continuously shoot approximately a few hundred images without changing a storage medium such as a memory card, and it is becoming general to shoot a large number of images of the same scene at one time, using a continuous shooting function or the like. Thus, a user can shoot a plurality of images of the same scene without hesitation, and later, can select preferred data.
In a case where the above-described shooting is performed, a large number of contents of moving images and still images including the same scene are stored. In most cases, a photographer of each imaging device selects data he/she prefers and thus organizes the contents, and the contents are printed out, or labeled with a title and the like to be managed for a permanent collection so that the data can be repeatedly viewed.
However, in a case where there are a plurality of imaging devices that shot the same scene, a plurality of contents which are organized in the respective imaging devices co-exist. This causes a great inconvenience because it is necessary that the contents in one of the imaging devices are reproduced separately from the contents in another of the imaging devices when the contents are viewed later. Therefore, many users are desiring an appearance of a technique for efficiently selecting and deselecting a plurality of contents or efficiently viewing a plurality of related contents.
As a conventional technique for efficiently displaying a plurality of related contents, disclosed is an image display system in which: when a DVC device and a memory card are connected to a TV device while a TV broadcast program is being viewed, whether or not there are related scenes that were shot within the same time period, in images recorded in the DVC device and the memory card, is determined by comparing shooting times; and when there are related scenes, a “tied string icon” is displayed on a screen on which the TV broadcast is being reproduced, so that a TV viewer can recognize that the contents of the two connected devices are related to each other (see Patent Literature 1, paragraph 0126). In addition, in the image display system, when the TV viewer selects the “tied string icon”, a linked thumbnail image display screen, which displays a list of thumbnail screens of still images recorded in the memory card being associated with a video scene icon indicating a moving image recorded in the DVC device, is displayed (see Patent Literature 1, paragraphs 0128 to 0131).